Man with gun followed woman in Royal Oak Township, police say

A Detroit man is charged with illegally carrying a loaded gun after police say he followed a woman across a parking lot to her car then walked away to a nearby pizzeria.

The man was arrested Sunday near a strip of stores on West Eight Mile east of Wyoming where men have attacked or robbed three women in separate incidents over the past month. Police said he matches the description of a man involved in a previous attempted armed robbery in the area.

“We have had lot of activity there lately and have been trying to patrol the area more,” said Oakland County Sheriff’s Sgt. Chad Allan.

Orin L. King Jr., 21, was arraigned Tuesday before Oak Park 45th District Judge Michelle Freidman-Appel for carrying a concealed weapon, a five-year felony. He is jailed on $25,000 cash bond. The suspect is schedule for a pre-exam conference before Freidman-Appel at 8 a.m. Feb. 19.

A mother and her adult daughter were in their car outside the Dollar Tree when they flagged down a deputy on patrol about 5:30 p.m. Sunday.

They told police the suspect was acting suspicious and had followed the daughter through the parking until she reached the car.

The mother told police that the suspect was inside the Jet’s Pizza shop in the 8900 block of West Eight Mile in the same strip mall, Allan said.

Deputies went inside the pizzeria and confronted the suspect, who was carrying a fully loaded .38-caliber revolver, police said.

Deputies arrested him for carrying a concealed weapon. Police said the suspect may have been targeting the young woman for a robbery as she walked to the car where her mother was waiting.

“I think a reasonable person can draw the line between him following the woman and carrying a loaded gun to some other nefarious intent such as robbery,” Allan said.

Investigators are looking for the two women who alerted deputies to the suspect.

“They drove away before we could get their information and we don’t know who they are,” he said.

Recent crimes in the same area include:

-A girl, 16, who was attacked and robbed by a man in her car outside Kroger, 8920 W. Eight Mile, on Jan. 16.

-A woman who was confronted by two men, one with a gun, who tried to rob her outside the Aldi grocery store, 8228 W. Eight Mile on Jan. 26. One of the men stuck a handgun into the woman’s stomach, but she ran back into the store and the men fled across Eight Mile into Detroit.

-A woman, 82, whose purse was snatched as she was walking from the Dollar Tree to her car Feb. 6. A few onlookers stopped a suspect and held him until police arrived.